


(Weaving) Unraveled Heartstrings

by hellsinki



Series: Fallout [2]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M, Unrequited Love, barry tries to get his shit together, cuz this needed to be as close to canon as possible, dont you ever learn your lessons, julian gives barry a piece of his mind, julian plays the guitar, no barry it wasnt cool to push julian into the arms of savitar, not really fun, otherwise i'd never write one-sided love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-05 01:49:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10294727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellsinki/pseuds/hellsinki
Summary: The morning after Savitar is released from the Speed Force, Julian calls in sick to work. Barry goes to check if he's alright and tries to mend the rift between them but they end up having a fight. All Barry knows is that he wants to win back Julian’s trust, but he doesn't know how.





	

It was half past eight in the morning and he should have been at the CCPD by now but he was lying awake in bed, had been ever since he and Iris came back home after that traumatic night. The pain in his shattered collarbone ceased after two hours or so, but the pain in his head and heart had not yet let go. They had lost Wally to the Speed Force, Savitar had finally broken loose and was now roaming Central City freely, he didn’t know if he could trust Caitlin anymore, and somehow, at the forefront of his thoughts, there was Julian Albert, with those anguished blue eyes flashing a purplish hue every time Barry closed his eyes, that miserable expression on a face that had always been well-guarded, the quivering lips mouthing ‘No’ over and over again inside Barry’s skull until the word had lost its actual essence and turned into an instrument of torture, a barbed wire wrapped tightly around his head pressing down into his scalp until it drew blood.  

Why didn’t he listen to him? Why didn’t he stop?

He turned around to face Iris, sleeping soundlessly next to him with a frown on her beautiful face, her finger without the engagement ring, struggling for an ounce of peace through a restless sleep, not that he was expecting anything but.

Was she the reason why?

Did his love for Iris give him permission to bend others to his will? Did his fear of losing her blind him to the suffering of the people he should have instead protected from harm?

Did he have any right at all to force Julian into doing what he didn’t want to do? Did he make a mistake? Should he have apologized?

He had listened in on the conversation between Julian and HR last night. Hearing about how the British CSI thought of them, of Barry in particular, that he didn’t belong with them and was only there to do his part, that HR thought he had been hurt but Julian was too adamant to convince him otherwise, and if that reaction wasn’t any indication of how much Julian had been truly hurt, Barry didn’t know what was.

These thoughts were poisoning his mind, like a viper’s fangs buried deep into his scalp. He needed to stop for a while to gather his bearings, to catch his breath. There was no time.

The muffled noise of his phone vibrating on the bedside table brought him back to the present. He checked the caller ID. It was Joe.

“Hey, Bar. How are you?” He sounded drained and exhausted. It was obvious he hadn’t slept much either. With his son imprisoned in the Speed Force and his daughter’s life under constant threat, Barry had no idea how Joe was keeping it all together right now.

“Sorry, Joe, I know it's late. I’ll be down at the precinct in ten minutes.” He kept his voice low so Iris would not be disturbed. He really didn’t want to be back at the precinct today, not with Savitar on the loose and Wally in the Speed Force and Julian...he didn’t know why even thinking about his name made dread coil around his heart. Maybe it was a delayed reaction to having seen Julian telling him those awful things as Savitar. Or maybe it was the way he had said no so vehemently like he would rather die than channel Savitar, only to accede afterwards with a deep sigh. Maybe it was the way he passed out the second time after the connection was lost. Barry wished he knew how to shut off his mind.

“No, it’s not that. It’s about Julian.” Fear rose up in Barry’s throat like bile. “He's called in sick, but is not answering my calls. I think, uh, you should go check on him, Bar.”

Barry pinched the bridge of his nose and heaved a sigh. He couldn’t just say no, although there was nothing he wanted more than avoiding Julian for now. “Alright.”

He sped through dressing up, leaving a short note for Iris telling her where he had run off, phasing through Julian’s front door not bothering with the knock, and finding him sitting cross-legged on the marbled floor that must have been cold, leaning back against the wall, a guitar on his lap, eyes staring off into space. He was playing a slow, melancholic melody that sounded beautiful but unfamiliar, long, slender fingers sliding smoothly over the strings, a hypnotic sight. Barry didn’t even realize he had been just standing there for a while, looking at Julian playing the guitar.

“Go away.” There was no emotion in his voice. He didn’t even turn around to face the intruder standing transfixed in his living room with wide eyes.

“You called in sick,” was the only thing he could think up at the time.

“Yes. Do I need to show you proof of being sick, now?” Slight annoyance this time, but eyes still refusing to meet his.

“No!,” he said in indignation, surprised that Julian would even suggest such a thing. “I was just...worried.”

“Do forgive me if I find that hard to believe.” Barry could practically hear the snarl in his low voice.

He took some steps forward which placed him right before Julian. The man was still strumming his guitar, although the melody sounded different now. A little more aggressive, more angry, less plaintive, but somehow still as beautiful. Barry had no idea Julian could play the guitar. Seeing him like this was completely surreal.  

“What’s wrong with you, Julian? Why are you like this?” He kept the frustration out of his voice, which made his voice come out as flat and almost uncaring.

Julian finally looked up at him, fingers now roaming over the strings aimlessly, just to create some noise to fill the yawning gap in their miscommunication, to give his hands something to do other than run them through his hair or punch Barry in the face.

The thought of punching the speedster rocked gently inside his head like a bubble bursting on the surface of water. It would feel good and god knew he deserved it, but Julian wouldn't stoop that low when he had words and logic on his side.

“Like what? Like I have finally decided I had enough? Like I've come to my senses and decided to take care of myself when no one else is bothering?” He kept his tone clinical to conceal the pain and anger inside.

Barry was almost tempted to match Julian’s snide remarks with a few choice words of his own, but he managed to snuff the urge. He didn’t come here to pick a fight, he reminded himself. He was here to...do what, exactly? Apologize? Explain his actions last night? Make sure Julian was alright? All he knew was that he wanted to win back Julian’s trust. He didn’t know how, though.

“I’ve heard what you told HR last night.” He finally settled with voicing the thought that had been giving him so much headache and confusion.

Julian snorted. “Of course you did. People's privacy means nothing to you.”

“Will you stop with the jibes already?”

Those blue eyes with the undertones of ash gray desolation and accusation latched onto his. Barry’s throat closed up. He hated looking into those eyes now.

“I trusted you.” _I loved you,_ the thought dribbled slowly down the walls of his skull like rivers of viscous blood. Unwittingly, he cut his fingertip on the strings as he pressed a little too hard on the fretboard. The sharp sting like a vicious papercut felt like a tribute to all the crack lines over his heart and he welcomed it with an inward smile.

“Julian…”

He finally put the guitar aside and rose to his feet, bare on cold marble floor. “No. No, I’m sick of hearing your excuses. You, Barry Allen, may think of yourself as one of the good metahumans, the ones who use their powers for the greater good of humanity, but you are not a good person. You are morally corrupt. You’re cruel and selfish, you -”

“That’s what he said,” Barry cut him off with a strange expression on his face.

“What?” That wasn’t the reaction he had been expecting from Barry for his outburst.

Barry looked to the side for a brief moment before returning his gaze to him. His dark green eyes looked dead, half-buried under some well-disguised emotion. “Savitar. When he was speaking through you. He said I was cruel and selfish.”

If there was any significance to that revelation, Julian chose to ignore it. “Well, at least we agree on something. You know, maybe he’s the good guy. Maybe all he’s trying to do is stop whom he thinks as corrupt and isn’t that what you always do, going after metas whom you quite subjectively judge as criminals and locking them up?”

Barry shook his head in disbelief. “You know, you’re starting to sound just like him.”

Julian took a few steps forward, tilting his head up to look directly into Barry’s eyes. He was so close that the warm gust of his breath brushed softly against the slightly chilled skin of Barry’s jaw. This close, Barry could better see the swirl of pain and disappointment in the pale blue of those eyes.

“Are you scared?,” there was a seductive lilt to that British-accented voice that almost caught Barry off-guard. “Are you scared of me? Or _for_ me?”

The knowing smirk on Julian’s lips was the reminiscent of the one Savitar had given him by taking control of that mouth. Barry's gut twisted with an awful sense of foreboding. “I’m beginning to think that I have no idea who you are anymore.”

Even the little quirk of his eyebrows reminded Barry of Savitar. “Why? Because I called you out on your bullshit? Because I got sick of doing your bidding? Because I said no to being abused again?”

How could he tell if Julian wasn't possessed by Savitar right now? “Because you stopped trusting me.”

“And who’s fault is that?”

Barry reached out to grab Julian’s shoulder but the Blond took a few steps back, as if scared that Barry would hit him. Barry’s heart sank at the betrayed look on that face. He had never hurt Julian on purpose. Why would he? They were _friends,_ why would Julian think so lowly of him now?

“Look, Julian, we’re running against the clock. Savitar is going to kill the woman I love, he has trapped Wally in the Speed Force and this is not a good time to be playing the blame game and guilt tripping each other.”

Something fierce and almost cruel flashed in Julian’s eyes. “But isn’t that what you’ve been doing all this time? Have you ever stopped, just for one second, to think why Savitar is doing all this? Why is he coming after you, targeting you, threatening the lives of your loved ones? Have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe, this is all your fault to begin with?”

For a second, Barry got a vision of Savitar without his mask. It was Julian’s face. The thought almost made him throw up in his mouth. “What? How is this my fault? I didn’t do anything to him! I didn’t even know about him until he came after me!”

Julian gave a tired sigh. “When you tamper with time, Allen, expressions like before, after and now lose their actual meanings. Surely, you’re not so stupid as to not realize that?”

He had a point but Barry wasn't going to acknowledge it. “Julian, you have to stop thinking like this! This is not helping our cause.”

“Well, maybe I’m just sick of helping your cause.”

Dread like freezing water poured into the pit of his stomach. “You can’t quit now.”

“Why not? I owe you nothing,” he spat.

Barry raked his mind to come up with a reason. “I helped you with your Alchemy problem.” But this was far from an ideal response, as Julian’s expression darkened with a frown and narrowed eyes.

“And I helped saving Cisco’s, Iris’s, Caitlin’s and _your_ life. How many more lives do I have to save in order to make up for what I did when my mind had been held hostage by an entity more powerful than I?”

Why Julian kept making more sensible arguments than Barry? At this point, the speedster was tempted to bash his own head against the wall. He ran a hand through his hair as if the act could dislodge some common sense from behind his parietal bones and guide them through his thought process. “It’s not about that. We need you on this team. We need you on our side.”

“What...what are you trying to say?” He asked in a somewhat distressed voice.

“Look, Julian, don’t take this the wrong way, but seeing how easily Savitar can possess your mind and make you do anything he wants, you’re a great liability to us.”

“Unbelievable,” Julian shook his head several times and a short-lived, bitter laugh escaped his mouth. “Don’t you have any shame at all?” He once again stepped closer to Barry, pointing his finger at him. “I’m a liability to you because Savitar can hijack my mind, but then you go and force me into letting him mentally violate me as long as it serves your bloody purposes?”

“Jesus, Julian, would you tone down the dramatics just a bit?”

“Dramatics?,” Julian sounded scandalized, about to make a cutting retort that would hurt Barry so much he wouldn’t be able to recover from it for a long time, but a lump lodged painfully inside his throat and caused his eyes to well up. This wasn’t where he had imagined their relationship to end up, not after everything they had gone through, every little thing that Julian let go of or held onto to be part of this family, to matter to someone, to be at the forefront of Barry Allen’s mind for a while. “Don’t you...don’t care anything about me at all?”

Barry almost reached out to hold Julian in his arms, but he didn’t want him to step away from him in fear and revulsion. “Of course I do. You’re my friend.” _and so much more_ , but he couldn’t just speak the words right now.

“But not as important as the rest of your friends, am I?” Julian said in derision. “Every time you had to choose between me and them, it was them that you chose. Don’t think I’ve forgotten the time you punched me out cold to save your friend's arse who’d kidnapped me, threatened my life, forced me to do things against my will and even physically hurt me. You chose her then, and you’re choosing Iris over my safety now. You lot are all the same. Even Caitlin played me. She made me believe that she cared about my wellbeing when all the while she was keeping a piece of that wretched stone to herself knowing full well how susceptible I was to its calling. She didn’t even…”

As if suddenly realizing what he was actually saying, to whom he was confessing all his fears and anxieties, Julian cut himself off. _She didn’t even like me,_ was what he had almost let escape his mouth.

Then he continued in a tired, resigned tone, “I...I’m not a part of your sweet happy family, Barry. Please stop pretending that I am for the sake of convincing me to do whatever you want.”

“Julian, I’m sorry,” and he truly was. But he knew words were not enough. “I never wanted you to feel like you’re being used. You are important to me.” _I don’t know what it is exactly I feel for you, but I miss you terribly when you’re not around. I feel much safer when you are. I’ve always trusted your mathematical mind. And I’m scared of losing you now._

“Please define important.” Julian’s bitterness stung. It hurt that he was so dismissive of Barry when Barry had just been having those thoughts about him.

“I’d almost forgotten all about your snarky side.”

Julian looked at him with angry eyes. “You think I want it this way? You think I enjoy feeling wronged and abused, covering behind sarcasm and snark to prevent further damage to my pride? You think I wouldn’t have rather still believed in you as a trusted friend as opposed to this wretchedness I’m feeling about you now?”

“Julian, please, I’m under a lot of pressure,” Barry was practically pleading with him. He needed Julian on his side, not just because of Savitar and the damage he could do to them all by controlling Julian, but because Julian really mattered to him, despite what the Blond might have thought to be the case. They had helped each other through a lot of tough times and Barry was not ready to give up on him just yet. “I haven’t slept ever since I was thrust into the future and watched the love of my life get killed right before my eyes. I -”

“You’re not the only one with sleeping problems, Allen,” Julian cut him off. “You’re not the only one under a lot of pressure. You’re terrified of losing Iris. I’m terrified of losing my mind. And I don’t have superpowers and a whole team of smart people dedicated to my cause to protect myself against harm.”

It was the slight tremor in his voice, the bright sheen of tears in his eyes, his clenched hands at his side, his pride that he protected more fiercely than his life, that propelled Barry forward to throw his arms around Julian’s stiff shoulders to give him a tight hug.

“I’m so sorry, Jul,” he pressed his wet cheek to the side of Julian’s neck, breathing heavily against his warm skin. He liked the way Julian smelled; expensive, refined, collected and exquisite, and still there was something vulnerable underneath them all. Something that reached out for protection, for love. Barry had once promised himself to be the one to answer that call. What had become of them now? “I know what I asked you to do was wrong. I’ve been a total dick to you, I know. You needed protection against Savitar and instead I pushed you right into his arms. You have every right to be mad at me, but please, please, don’t leave us. We need you. I need you. I need you to win this fight.”

“You’re lucky Allen that I’m a better man than you are.” There was a softness to his voice, almost affectionate, that took away the sharp edges of those words.

Barry pulled away from the hug to look at Julian’s face. Those eyes still looked cloudy but the frown was gone. “Does that mean you’ll stay?” he sniffed and wiped his eyes on his sleeve.

“I will, but I won’t allow you or anybody else to pressure me into channeling Savitar again.”

Barry was so relieved that he almost laughed. “I told you, that was the last time, and I’m not going back on my words. I’m not going to abuse your trust. You’re one of us, Julian, and I’m never letting you go without a fight.”

The corners of Julian’s lips were slightly pulled upward as he reached out his hand to touch Barry’s shoulder tentatively. It was a gesture of truce, of trust, of a willingness to try again. “Now get out of my face. I’m on a sick leave. I would like to have today only to myself.”

“Of course. Julian, I...I’ll make it up to you somehow, alright? I promise I will. After we take out Savitar and save Iris and Wally...I’ll do whatever you want.” Barry had never sounded more sincere in his life.

_No you won’t_ , Julian thought about the soft pressure of lips, hands tangled into thick strands of hair, mingled breaths, heaving chests, increased heart rate. He shook his head at himself. He couldn’t believe he still wanted this, despite everything.

“I don’t want anything. Only for my choices and rights to be respected from now on.”

“You got it.” Barry gave him a sunny smile which did nothing to thaw the ice around Julian’s cracked heart.  

But this was alright. He couldn't afford being on his own right now and even if it hurt his pride to admit it, he still needed Barry on his side. He could go on ignoring the seductive whisper of Savitar in his head for a little while longer. Julian had no real appetite for the dark side.


End file.
